Problem: Jessica is 52 years old and William is 14 years old. How many years will it take until Jessica is only 3 times as old as William?
Answer: We can use the given information to write down an equation about how many years it will take. Let $y$ be the number of years that it will take. In $y$ years, Jessica will be $52 + y$ years old and William will be $14 + y$ years old. At that time, Jessica will be 3 times as old as William. Writing this information as an equation, we get: $52 + y = 3 (14 + y)$ Simplifying the right side of this equation, we get: $52 + y = 42 + 3 y$ Solving for $y$ , we get: $2 y = 10$ $y = 5$.